A Test Drive Is All It Takes To Put Fancy Sports Car In The Driveway

Ishould have known better than to let my wife take that sports coupe for a test drive.

A few days earlier, our mechanic had performed last rites over her car after it had overheated.

We had made the last car payment in January, and she has had new car fever ever since.

Somehow the heat from that fever built so high it traveled from her thoughts to her arms, down the steering wheel and column to the engine where it gathered steam, burst hoses and sizzled internal parts.

Afterward, the family gathered at a local garage for a quiet service for the old car. Gene the Mechanic gave the eulogy. The odometer had turned over for the last time, he said.

Still, in those final days before he disconnected the the life-support link to the battery, he swears he heard the radio playing old Chuck Berry songs.

After a brief period of mourning, we started shopping around for another car.

Just looking can't hurt, right?

While I was recovering from sticker shock after a check on the price of a small, late model four-door, my wife was sliding behind the wheel of a new black two-seater sports car.

Looking into the back of the foreign job, I asked, ''where do the children sit?''

She just smiled. ''In your van.''

That was when the salesman spotted us.

''Like it? Take it for a ride. Here are the keys.''

''I hate the color,'' I said, hoping that would end it.

He had a dark maroon she liked even better.

''We can't afford a sports car,'' I said, trying to lead her eye over to a station wagon with a luggage rack.

He had terms and she had the keys. They were ganging up.

By the time I settled into the passenger seat, she had already figured out the adjustable steering column, cranked up the turbo engine and popped a Jerry Lee Lewis tape into the cassette player.

Where had she been hiding that tape? A good lawyer could have proved premeditation.

It sounded great, I thought, knowing I had been set up. This was not going to be easy.

While I was trying to explain the practicality of a used four-door sedan I had seen on the back lot, she was whipping around the S-curves on Wymore Road and Jerry Lee was wailing the chorus to ''Breathless.''

Logical, sensible discussions cannot be carried on under such conditions.

When we got back, a nice retired couple was looking over the sedan I had my eye on.

This was going to be tougher than I thought. My wife was not going to drive a car that is the choice of retirees.

It got worse.

While we were test driving, the salesman had talked with his boss and came up with a price even I knew we could afford.

''Take the car home,'' he said. ''See how you like it. We'll worry about the paperwork tomorrow.''

I didn't say much, but I knew I had lost.

When we got home, the neighbors gathered around as my wife showed off all the fancy gadgets and my son washed off the yellow shoe polish numbers from the the windshield.